Present Final Game

Our team game's topic is about graphing in math. We want our players to learn how to graph, while giving them a similar example.

How did your team's ideas about the game topic change over time? Our team didn't make many changes, but in the beginning, we had some thoughts about our original topic and didn't think it could be made into a fun game.

Our team is comprised of three team mates, and our roles have changed over time. It used to be where Ethan would be the graphics designer, I was the coder, and Oskar was the one who helped build a story, but it changed where we all made our parts in the game, where I had the main part of the game though.

The research we put into our topic was with prior knowledge and research. All of my team has learned about graphing already, but it was good to do a little research prior to the game.

 The player will play our game by our game by following the directions provided by the GPS. You read the GPS, for example "Go To (4,2)", and using your knowledge of graphing and coordinate planes, you will travel to the destination. Our decision for the implementing of the topic was in a way that could be similar to the real world, and thus, while playing, you can still learn.

For me, my favorite resource to help me learn are classmates. Team Zungry helped us in some issues, and that is what we did to resolve some issues.

The hardest topic for me to do was the implementation of graphing in our game. We overcame this with our idea of the GPS being a graph, and this leads me to say how I am the most proud of how we got the learning topic in our game in a clever way.

What I think I should do with my team's game is finish the game all the way to the final boss. This game could have an impact on our community as it can help them with the tough topic of graphing, and thus, people may not have as much as a hard time with graphing.

Tune Game

Play-testing is important to the game as well as the game designers for many reasons. First off, having someone other than you play a game can get rid of bias and challenge how good you think your game is. Having others play-test also can help find bugs and glitches. You may not try to find them, but their are some people who like to find bugs and ways to bypass obstacles in the game. Play-testing can also improve your game's function-ability as a whole. That way, you can add the play-tester's ideas to your game, some of which you could never have thought up with a play-test.

Playtesting

The feedback on my teams game wasn't the best, but what I saw while having the other team play was that the directions to objectives was a little confusing. I was thinking that what I could add to the game is a system for moving to points, so instead of saying "Go To #", I would say move left #, move up #. Less surprising feedback was the building glitch, but if people don't go out of their way to find glitches in the game, then it's fine.

Combine Files

What our team did to combine files was we shared their flash drives with me, and I moved their files on to the main game. I edited the code to work with the current file, and this way, we had a working file with my team's work.

Build Game

Pseudo code builds the game's functionality, as it helps people read code. If there is code that moves the character, if somebody writes above the code ' //This moves the character up ', that would tell people reviewing the code and team members editing code know exactly what the code does, or is supposed to do.

Presenting the Demo

 We want people to learn how to read a graph and how to graph. Most importantly, we want people to learn how to find points on the graph

Our game idea could have been a game about Newton's laws or another racing game that dealt with fractions, but neither of those ideas were agreed upon, as neither were as fun as our current game.

We work together as I will code the game, and give ideas on how my team can help on the game. My team will draw, test it's function-ability, and edit the team page when needed.

Some research that has gone into our topic is plenty. The websites gave us better knowledge to expand upon my own, and if anyone else in my team needed help, it could help them with the math topic.

Some actions your character will take are driving, shooting, and going to destinations. You will use the arrow keys to drive, space bar to shoot, and drive to specific destinations to win.

The most useful Flash tools to me are the line tool, the rectangle tool, and the paint bucket tool. They have been very accurate and normal looking, offering a more appealing game.

Our most difficult challenge the glitch that occurs when you drive into obstacles, where you become stuck. Our car has four faces, the front, back,  and the left and right sides, but driving into obstacles in certain ways can get you stuck. I have a solution that is a lazy way out, but if you become stuck, you can get moved back to the coordinate point (0,0). The programming feature I am the most proud of is our character creator. It allows you to currently change your character's color, but I would like to add a way to change your car type to a truck or van.

My next steps for the game is to add more enemies, add shooting, finish the boss, and add more destinations. With the destinations, you will head to them, getting power ups, weapons, and finally finding and fighting the boss. I plan to have my game played by math teachers and they're classes, as well as have this game viewed and liked by professionals. The game may impact the community in different ways, as offer a fun way of learning how to use graphs, as well as teach people how graphs come in useful in the real world. This leads me to tell how it will help others in math, as it is a challenging subject that not many people enjoy learning.

Assembling the Demo

We have plenty of buttons in our game. We have the splash screen and we have the character creator screen. Then, there are buttons to allow you to progress through the story. I don't have any other ideas for the buttons, but I can certainly find ways to get past that obstacle.

For some Flash help: help.adobe.com

The Wonderful Keyboard

Keyboard control is how you move your character in our game. You use the arrow keys, and I may add an option for WASD, but the problem is that it would be tough to edit a lot of code. We also use the keyboard for developer cheats, so we can go fast or enable an upgrade sooner. This is how we can use the keyboard on our game.

Many Buttons and More to Come

Our game has many buttons already. First off, we have our splash screen, with the help and about pages, that need buttons, and the start button. When you start, you can customize your character with 6 different colors, and the paint buckets are... buttons. You press go to begin, and you will vista your destinations, which will be closed with more buttons. Other destinations will have choice buttons, like upgrades. I do not know of any other buttons we may add, as they have yet to be implemented.

Our Game Pitch

Our scene will tell a story in a urban environment with invading robots. The destinations will teach you the story of the invaders and how to defeat them. The urban environment will be in pretty good shape, except for road blocks, stopped cars, so destroyed structures, and enemies. Navigating through these obstacles will bring you to small hideouts where a resistance will supply you with goods and story on the invaders. That is how our game will tell its story.

Developing Our Scenes

We plan on using walls and multiple enemies in our final game. Our game is about graphing, but some people like to find ways to exploit the game. I've decided to use walls as ways to prevent the player from skipping the learning goal just to beat the game. I'll have other ways of preventing premature winning, but the walls are the biggest part. The multiple enemies will be to provide a fun factor to our game, and one of the enemies will be the boss. The boss is the end goal of the game, and to improve upon that, defeating it is the only way to win the game. The enemies will provide and interesting challenge, as well as the slowly decreasing gas, or health. That is some of our decided game topics.

Trace Paper Prototype

This is the easiest and most incomplete part of our game: drawing the game. The paper prototype gave me an idea of what landmarks I could plop down on the game scene. Along with that, the city is still large, so I've added a way for you to move around.

Paper Prototype for the Globeys

Our paper prototype was a little hard to do, but it gave us another base for our game: the boss. We wondered how we could make these "destinations" useful to go to, as you get weapons and upgrades as you get to a certain area. The final place is where you fight the boss, and use your newly acquired upgrades and weapons to counter it. The boss still needs some thought, but we have most of the idea down.

Plan Game

• WHO are you designing your game for? (Include the player's age, abilities, and prior knowledge of your topic.) How will you make sure your game is not hurtful to any group of people?

We are designing our game for people who are currently learning about graphing in math. This topic is a bit more simple, so it will be in the range of 5th-8th grade.

• WHAT will your game teach the player about your topic? (Be specific!)

Our game will teach the player about following coordinates and using formulas to get to the destination. The coordinates include specific locations, and the formulas will have you go somewhere.

• WHERE does your game happen?

Our game happens in a city with a map that acts like a graph. The city will be divided up into sectors, that are a block in size.

• HOW does your game world teach the player about your topic?

The game will teach the player about graphing as they will follow their map as if it were a graph. They go to a specific coordinate or follow a formula to get upgrades to defeat the robots.

• WHY is a game a better way of understanding your topic than a quiz?

The game requires you to use prior knowledge of graphing, but teaches it through hints and tricks you get through the game.

Choose Game Genre

My game idea is a good idea since it uses maps in a sense of graphs, and you need to use your knowledge of graphing to win. The game will be action, so you don't idle or use trial and error to win. If I were to edit "Hobo's Journey", I would make it more of a game, instead of a quiz, and I would make it a lot less offensive, since it gives a bias view on poor people. For the game "Larry", I don't think it needs much to be done with the bias, as it shows the problem, yet doesn't give a really offensive view at poor people.

Choose Learning Topic

I like my game topic since it works well with my map idea. On the map, it will be labeled in sectors, much like a graph. Using your knowledge of math and graphing, you will go to the sector that is listed by the equation.

Planning my Workflow

I have decided to do most of my teams coding. I will do everything from coding to testing my scripts.  I also will direct the team to how I want the game, so while my other team members draw, I tell them how to do it. Other than that, I also will edit the project page, research, and if I need to, draw and animate.

Play to Learn 3

From the few games I did play, most of them were action games. Ninja Parkour was a platformer, Finding Mr. X, was a mix of platforms and other things, and Sigma Prime was a fast paced shooting game, where you had to shoot the correct numbers and avoid shooting them with an incorrect prime number. The number one feature that both sigma prime and Finding Mr. X was the most interesting with the shooting projectiles ability. For my game, I would like to learn how to make a firing ranged weapon.

Team Digital Hamburgers

Our team should be able to complete three times more than a single person. I plan on being the teams coder, so while I wait for the team artist to draw something, I will work on code, then insert it into the finished drawing when it is given to me. This way, we do our separate things and combine it into the game at the end. In the combined game part, we share it to everyone, so they can do minor tweaks, then we combine those tweaks into the final game product. That is what I believe our team can accomplish.

Game Idea

In my game, I wasn't able to get it done, but my idea for the game was a sort of backwards action game, as you chase the enemy. The character would be a nanobot, and it is chasing an enemy nanobot, thus meaning, the collectible would also be the enemy, but to catch the enemy, you had to use your knowledge of matter to get past those obstacles first. I wanted to get the character movement with the level done first, as getting all the walls that keep you in the level done, so you couldn't get out and exploit your way to victory. Then, I wanted to implement obstacles, such as mixtures that you must find a way across, and liquid molecules and atoms you need to cross. The mixtures were to teach you that the combined atoms are not chemically bonded, like molecules, and could be split, and in this case, the player's character has a laser cutter. Liquid molecules and compounds would act as thing that push your character a certain direction, to impede your movement or cause a loss due to being moved into a dangerous object/matter, or being crushed. Then, I would add the enemy, which would run away from you, and is trying to escape, meaning you have a set period of time to catch it. If the time runs out, he escapes and traps you, meaning you lose. He will also lay traps to attempt to destroy the character, so you lose. I had the idea of having multiple ways to lose, such as being destroyed by a trap, getting trapped/crushed/destroyed by liquid matter, or running out of time. I also wanted to add animation to the characters, such as the "arm" on the character would move up and down, and maybe the laser would fire up if you activated it. Some problems I've had were the obstacles at first. I had an idea where it puts you in a set position, but then I altered it so anytime you collide with it, you stay in that area. I need to add that to all walls and obstacles in the level, though.

Add Enemy

I have not yet implemented my enemy, but my vision is that it will be the objective to win. You must catch the enemy in a set period of time before he escapes, while using your knowledge of matter to get past molecules and atoms that are obstacles, and use skill to maneuver traps. To think about enemy behaviors, I have one set, and I can't really add others. He won't attack you actively, but he will lay traps defensively. I can't really name any other behaviors for this type of enemy.

Add Scoring

In my game, I do not think about adding scoring in the since of points. It is just a game where you must get to the end, while maneuvering through obstacles, and avoiding traps. My victory conditions will be trapping the goal, which is also the enemy, while using your knowledge of atoms to get past them. I like this system of winning for my game as, you won't want to collect every atom and molecule found in the game, but you want to use your knowledge to catch an enemy in a set period of time, before they escape.

Create a Collectible

The "collectible" of my game isn't really a collectible, but more of an obstacle. This part is the part of the game that teaches the player about mixtures, and how they are split and formed. It uses hitTest to make it so when your laser cutter comes in contact with it, it will split. The real collectible will be the enemy, as you will need to catch it to win. I have not implemented that yet.